The Democrats' pledge to take away your rights

Jonathon Turley:

The Democratic presidential debate down in South Carolina this week has proven once again the famous line that there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The line is the perfect warning to the unwary about politicians citing statistics. The quote itself is widely misrepresented as the work of Mark Twain or British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, so it seems nothing can be trusted when it comes to statistics, not even quotes on statistics.

Some false statistics, however, are so facially absurd that they are indeed harmless except to the most gullible. That was the case when former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Senator Bernie Sanders over a vote that had favored the gun industry. Biden declared that, since the vote, 150 million Americans have been killed by guns. He also said the vote happened in 2007, when it was actually in 2005. Many people immediately scratched their heads, thinking they may have missed a holocaust that had claimed roughly half the population. Later, the Biden campaign insisted it was just another one of his gaffes and the real number is 150,000 Americans.

However, even that figure is wrong, but a Democratic primary is no place for the factually preoccupied. Trillions have been pledged for reparations, free college tuition, free medical care and free child care, all to be funded using math that would embarrass Bernie Madoff. First, on the threshold statistical controversy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that all gun deaths since 2007 total about 450,000. Thus, Biden went from overstating it by more than 300 times to understating it by three times. It is possible to get this figure down to around 180,000 by excluding the 60 percent of gun deaths that occur due to suicide.

The much greater danger, however, is not the statistical but the legal misrepresentations on gun control, and those are not confined just to Biden. After all, cracking down on guns is one of the defining issues for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has pledged to “stop this nationwide madness.” In the debate, Biden dramatically glared into the camera to speak directly to the National Rifle Association, saying that he will fight the organization and the gun manufacturers if elected. The other Democratic candidates have made similar claims that they will reduce gun violence significantly with executive orders and laws.

Such statements are far more dishonest than the statistical flight of fancy promoted by Biden. Gun ownership is an individual constitutional right under the Second Amendment. A constitutional right cannot be reduced or changed by either executive order or legislation. You can only work on the margins of such exercises of constitutional rights, which belies the promise by Bloomberg that these measures would make an “enormous difference.” Elizabeth Warren declared that “we need a president willing to take executive action” to end gun violence without any explanation what she can do to limit an individual right, let alone do it unilaterally.
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Democrat candidates seem deeply committed to the politics of fraud with promises that not only violate the constitution but common sense.  If they were able to ban guns it is unlikely to stop suicides by other means.  Biden BTW is a gaffe machine when it comes to speaking with authority using made up statistics.